


this young heart

by summerwoodsmoke



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode 49 Spoilers, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Pre-Series, Snapshots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-13 01:51:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18022559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerwoodsmoke/pseuds/summerwoodsmoke
Summary: “Hi,” he whispered. His hands still held her arms. She felt...comfortable with him there. A strange sensation.“Hi,” she whispered back, blinking. She had a feeling life wouldn’t be quite the same after this.





	this young heart

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'i was made for loving you' by tori kelly  
> my friend rec'd 'falling slowly' from once for this story and it ruined me, i welcome you to join us

In a field on the edge of Felderwin, a small group of girls, halfling and human, stood and picked flowers together. They talked and giggled amongst themselves, and a few feet away from them, apart, a halfling girl named Veth ran her hands over the flowers that came up to her waist and pretended like the other girls had invited her to be there. They hadn’t, and in fact readily ignored her, but the traditions of the school lunch hour stood too strongly for them to shoo off one loner girl: when class was let out, the girls stood on the edge of the field, while the boys wandered farther off, only coming in for the school bell, or to complete a dare they’d been given.

Veth plucked a small cluster of forget-me-nots and spun them between her fingers. Even loser kids with no friends like her were expected to join with the rest of the boys and girls, although outsiders that were brave enough to risk sticking out even more might spend the lunch hour inside the schoolhouse. Veth wasn’t brave, though. She knew that. Everybody knew it. She let the flowers drop to the ground.

A few feet away, a girl giggled, and Veth looked up to see a few boys on the approach. She stifled a groan. Their break had just barely begun, so this must be a dare. Veth had been victim to a few dares in her time: pulled braids, thrown dirt clods, nasty rhymes thought up on the spot by one particularly smarmy boy.

These boys seemed to be headed towards the group Veth was with, so either pretty blonde Ava was due for a gentlemanly bow and kiss on the hand, or Veth would have to go home and change clothes. Either was sure to make the small crowd laugh. As they got closer, Veth could see Yeza was leading the pack. And he was definitely walking towards her.

That made it almost worse, somehow, that it was Yeza this time. He wasn’t normally one for the other boys’ games, usually too caught up in reading to notice or care what anybody else was doing. Veth had liked him solely on the merit of him leaving her and everyone else alone. That was about to change, it seemed.

The boys stopped about twenty feet back, watching as Yeza approached. Veth nudged her lunch sack behind her so it wouldn’t get dirty, just in case.

“Veth,” Yeza greeted, his voice just a tad overly-loud, to ensure the others heard. His hands fidgeted with his tunic. “How are you?” he asked politely.

Veth’s brow furrowed; she was sure it wasn’t a pleasing sight, but she didn’t know how else to respond. _Fine, until you showed up_? She settled on shrugging.

Yeza simply nodded. He cast a quick glance over his shoulder before stepping closer. Unsure of what to expect, Veth’s shoulders began to rise up to her ears, until his hands rested atop them, and his face came so close she could feel his breath, and his lips pushed against hers, and she forgot about the world entirely.

_It’s just a dare_ , her brain reminded her bitterly after a single second. And yet, he wasn’t stopping. Seconds were ticking by, and he wasn’t pulling away. Veth’s shoulders relaxed, and Yeza’s hands slid down to grasp lightly at her upper arms. A thumb rubbed lightly across her skin, and Veth gasped a bit, and she could’ve _sworn_ she felt his mouth open up a bit too, but that was the moment he chose to pull himself back, abruptly and wide-eyed.

He stared down at her, and she stared back, trying to get her heartbeat under control. That...had been more than a dare, and they both knew it. It was scary and wonderful and awful all at once, and she couldn’t seem to look away from his blue, blue eyes.

“Hi,” he whispered. His hands still held her arms. She felt...comfortable with him there. A strange sensation.

“Hi,” she whispered back, blinking. She had a feeling life wouldn’t be quite the same after this.

—

School in Felderwin wasn’t always the best attended, but especially so in the autumn, when the children of farmers were kept home to help with the harvest. Veth, with no parents to speak of at all, let alone farmer parents, never had reason to miss a single day of school. Yeza, she knew, as the son of apothecaries, was never kept home either.

The autumn after their first kiss, they were two of only four older children that came to school. The teacher left them to their own devices, with some books to read through, and attended to the little ones.

The other two older kids were sisters, human girls who treated Veth no worse or better than most people. The three of them all politely ignored each other. Yeza, though…

“May I sit here?”

Veth looked up to see Yeza standing at her table. She pursed her lips to keep from smiling. “You may.”

She’d been right, when she thought that things wouldn’t be quite the same after their kiss. The boys who’d dared Yeza had been catcalling them, not that she’d noticed, and she didn’t think Yeza had either, going from the dazed look on his face. He’d backed away from her slowly, like he couldn’t bear to look away from her, or so Veth liked to think. The next day, scared it was all a fluke, or a dream, she could only sit and watch as Yeza arrived, then approached her, asking if he could join her. They’d sat together every day since, and he still asked every single time. It was sweet. For the first time in her life, Veth didn’t dread going to school every day.

The thing was, being Yeza’s sweetheart didn’t suddenly make her pretty, or popular. Her nose was still too big, her skin too rough, her mouth still twisted and mocking. Their schoolmates still ignored or taunted her according to their own desires. Yeza holding her hand or kissing her sweetly didn’t suddenly make her coordinated or graceful; she still tripped and injured herself and broke things she dropped and so on. The difference was, sometimes, he was there to catch things as they fell. The difference was, sometimes, with his touch tingling on her skin, Veth felt like she could float home without ever touching ground.

The difference was, with Yeza at her side, life went from something to be endured, to something to be _lived_.

—

“Are you free this afternoon?” Yeza asked as he put his school books away.

Veth looked up from her bag. “You know full well I am, Yeza,” she replied teasingly.

Yeza blushed a bit, avoiding her eye. “I don’t want to assume,” he protested weakly, the barest beginnings of a smile on his own mouth.

_You can always assume I want to spend time with you_ , Veth thought, but even though they’d been together for almost a year now, she wasn’t brave enough to say it out loud. “Well, to answer your next question, yes, I _would_ like to come over and continue my lessons in alchemy.”

“Of course.” He was still blushing a bit. Veth couldn’t help it; she giggled a bit, and, glancing around the emptying classroom, gave him a quick kiss on the side of his mouth.

_I love you_ , she thought suddenly, overwhelmingly, before pushing the thought down and clearing her throat. “Let’s go, then, that acid won’t mix itself!” She rushed out the door, hearing a huff of laughter from Yeza behind her.

Yeza had been training with his parents to take over their shop for years now, but it had only been a few months ago that he’d hesitantly, nervously, asked if Veth would also like to learn. It had a clear enough implication: Yeza could see their relationship existing in the long-term, and wanted to encourage it in that direction, if she also wanted that. It was common for halflings to take up the occupation of their spouse, so they could be together, be a team in their work. Veth didn’t exactly have a lot of prospects herself, orphan that she was, certainly nothing she could offer Yeza, and she’d always been curious about the Brenatto apothecary shop, so she’d said yes to the lessons.

And she was glad she had, because if they were headed towards a life together, Veth needed all the time, help, and practice she could get. He’d tried to teach her how to make a healing potion first, and that had gone so badly, she’d set the ceiling on fire. He’d switched to acid after that, and while it was slow-going, it was at least _going_. There were times Veth wanted to give up; she wasn’t clever, like Yeza, and she didn’t feel patient or hard-working like his parents. Yeza deserved better. And yet, every day, he still asked her if she would come over to the shop. And that was why, despite her teasing, she was glad he still asked. It was nice to know she was still wanted, ‘cause she could still hardly believe it.

—

“I was thinking,” Yeza began. They lay on their backs next to each other, basking in the afternoon sun with the remains of their picnic around them.

“Oh, that never ends well,” Veth interrupted and got an elbow in her side for her troubles. She laughed and clasped Yeza’s hand in her own. “Sorry, go on.”

Yeza sighed, but did. “I was thinking about that conversation we had last week.”

“Oh?” Veth cast her mind back, combing through their conversations. They had so many, every day…

“And the one from a few months ago.”

Veth frowned. Well, that didn’t help.

“And the one from midsummer, that I brought up when I drank too much currant wine.”

_Oh_. Veth felt a shake run through her bloodstream, from excitement or nerves she couldn’t tell.

Marriage. He was talking about marriage. It had been there between them, unspoken, ever since they were still in school and he’d asked her to study alchemy with him. But that had been over two years ago now, and while life had been so, so wonderful, they’d never brought up the possibility of more, of change.

Then, the winter before last, his parents had both fallen ill and passed on. Yeza had officially taken over the shop, and Veth had officially gotten a job as his assistant. The summer after that was the first time he’d brought up marriage, the night of the midsummer celebration, him tipsy-drunk and blushing and unable to stop kissing her thumbs, and they’d discussed it more coherently a couple of times after that. It’d always been in the hypothetical, though, in a far off future that was much better than the present for no discernible reason.

“I recall these conversations, yes,” Veth said cautiously. She squeezed his hand gently. “What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking I’d very much love it if you would agree to marry me. Soon, not just in the hypothetical future.”

Veth rolled onto her side, Yeza mirroring the movement so they lay facing each other, their linked hands between them. Her eyes were a little wet, though she’d tell Yeza to shut up if he tried to mention it, and he knew it.

“What about you?” he asked. “What do you think?”

Veth’s face hurt—from smiling, she realized suddenly. “I’m thinking I’d like that very much,” she croaked through a tear-hoarse voice. They both laughed, from the sound and from the joyous madness of it all. They had no concrete plan, and no way to tell what the future would bring. But they had each other, and the promise of midsummers to come, and currant wine to drink, and decisions to be made together, as partners, as a team, and that was really so much more than Veth had ever, ever expected to have or deserve.

They fell asleep there that night, under the big, bright moon, Veth’s head tucked against Yeza’s neck, his hand running through her hair. “I love you,” she murmured as she drifted towards sleep. “I can’t wait for our lives to begin.”

**Author's Note:**

> writing nott pov fic is my only trick in this fandom but tbh im fine with that, shes the best
> 
> big thank you to tatra and leslie for beta reading this piece! 
> 
> and thank you for reading! kudos and comments are much appreciated. if you like, you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/alinastarkovas) or on [tumblr](https://tanosoka.tumblr.com)


End file.
